INTERVENTION BY THE HOLY SEE DELEGATIONAT
THE II CONFERENCE ON THE COMMERCIALEXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN

Yokohama (Japan)Friday, 21
December 2001

Mr Chairman,

Children have a right to an innocent childhood. Children are by nature lovely,
innocent, and trusting of adults, yet some of them are today increasingly robbed
of their very childhood. They are preyed upon by media, market forces, andpeople
who exploit them sexually. But children are the very hope and future of society,
and must be protected and helped in every respect.

Sexual exploitation of children is a crime so heinous that one is at a loss to
express his or her reactions and feelings. Both trafficking in women and
children, sex tourism, and child pornography on the internet have increased
enormously since the first conference on the commercial exploitation of children
in Stockholm in 1996. The combination of an amoral free market and sexual
decadence, and poverty and weak family structures explain this shocking truth.

Mr. Chairman, in the view of the Holy See, there can be no tolerance of
commercial exploitation of children, either in the name of free expression or
free choice. Children are never consenting sexual partners; they are always
victims. The Convention on the Rights of the Child underlines this fact:
the best interest of the child is always the key. We must be attentive to any
attempt to relativize the crimes here committed. Sexual abuse is evil, a
criminal act, and punishable. We must gather much more political will to combat
these crimes against our weakest, and we must strengthen both international law,
instruments of extradition and extra-territoriality.

As a mother of four children between ten and sixteen I am daily concerned about
the threats posed by media, internet, and the general sexual decadence of our
society. The ‘sexualization’ of childhood, driven by market forces,
contributes to robbing children of their natural innocence. The presentation of
sex as something normal at an ever earlier age, also leads to a
‘sexualization’ of childhood which in turn invites abusers and may even
allow them to seek ‘normalization’ and legitimacy of their crimes.

Mr. Chairman, the combination of poverty and weak family relations often
explains why children are involved in ‘sex tourism’ or become the victims of
trafficking. Poverty must and can be combatted through more development aid.
Here both international organizations and local communities must have a say. The
shameful sex tourism in many developing countries must be combatted on the
supply side as well as on the demand side. The poor family in the developing
world can and must be helped, and the clients-exploiters can and must be
detected and punished effectively through international legal cooperation. Here
promising developments involving extra-territorial legality are important. Both
sex tourism and internet child pornography are global phenomena, and must be
combatted with truly global political weapons.

But above all the main strategy to fight commercial sex abuse of children is to
strengthen the family. As Pope John Paul II recently underlined, "the
family is under threat from widespreadoffences
against human dignity, such as the sexual exploitation of women and
children"
(17th November 2001). Although sexual abuse of children sadly also
happens in the family context, as a main rule it is in the family that the child
is taught what a natural mother-father-child relationship is. Only in the family
can the child have the necessary protection against a predatory society that
does not have the best interest of the child in mind. We must now face up to the
fact that not only are poor children from failed or poor nations abused, but
also children from the very heart of Western society, with its affluence and
consumer richness. There is a major moral crisis at hand. The regional meetings
at Rabat and Bangkok have clearly pointed out, in their final statements, that
child sexual exploitation is also due to "the decline in values".
Family break-down and weakening happens, while society becomes more predatory in
the area of sexuality. As research shows, child abusers are not only
paedophiles, but also adolescents and adults who have a thwarted view of
sexuality. The combination of sex and violence in media, entertainment, and the
normalization of sexual experimentation easily lead to perversions that involve
abuse not only of women, but of children.

Once we see human beings as objects, once we forget that they have been created
by God with an unalienable dignity, they can simply be used and abused. Sexual
abuse of children is the logical extreme of such a view of the human being.
Therefore, we must analyse the root causes of this crime while at the same time
we must fight its occurrence in all the various ways suggested in the draft plan
of action. We must do so with more vigour and greater political will. Mr.
Chairman, my delegation welcomes the great effort made to bring this work
forward by the combined effort of UNICEF, the government of Japan, and all the
parties present at this conference. The Holy See will do its part, according to
its specific nature and competence, to combat the evil of commercial sexual
abuse of children, a crime that must never be compromised with or excused. We
must look deeply in our own societies, confronting the lack of sound sexual
behaviour, the dominance of a consumerist culture that sees human beings as
objects, and the licentiousness of some media which speculate in violence and
sexual perversions. We must react as citizens, and as politicians to ensure
moral standards in our states and in international society. We must foster, as
stated in Dhaka, "the reinforcement of positive cultural, religious and
moral values and practices, which protect and promote the rights and the dignity
of both girls and boys".

Finally, Mr. Chairman, allow me to make mine the verses of the well-known poet
Khalil Gibran: "Your children are not your children, they are the sons
and daughters of life’s longing for itself; they come through you but not from
you, and tough they are with you yet they belong not to you".